Sorcery! #8 - The Boatman

The Water Serpent attacks!

Campaign Diary

The party continued their trek, and towards noon came upon a clearing. In the centre of the clearing was a solitary knoll. Walking around the knoll, the party found a door on its side. Morgana knocked on the door, and a voice from within the knoll bade the party to enter.

The party opened the door to find Black Elf seated at a table in the middle of the room. Before her on the table was a glowing orb. She introduced herself as Fenestra, and questioned the party and asked their purpose, and when she learned that they were enemies of the archmage and his Serpents, she cackled and offered to show them what was in the orb. Inside the glowing orb, the party now saw, was the form of a serpent made of flame.

That, Fenestra told them, was the Sun Serpent, who sought shelter at her hut during a storm, and was trapped by her magic. The Water Serpent, she explained, killed her father many years ago, and since then she had dedicated herself to the destruction of the creatures. She imparted to them the knowledge of the weakness of the Water Serpent – it cannot abide oil - and handed them two flasks of oil. The party asked Fenestra if she knew of the weakness of the Time Serpent, and she replied that she did not - although it was said that it could only be defeated by powerful sorcery.

Leaving Fenestra, the party continued on northwards along the forest track, until they came upon a wide path to the left. Examining the ground, the realised that remnants of flagstones once covered this path. They followed the path to large clearing, in the middle of which stood a large stepped stone pyramid. At the edges of the squares were fallen stone statues of goblinoid warriors, now covered by undergrowth. The party spotted a small green snake on the ground between them and the pyramid; the snake seemed to notice them also, and it began to slither towards the pyramid.

The party followed the snake as it climbed up the steps of the pyramid, and when all four of them were on the pyramid, a wall of flame rose up and surrounded the pyramid. At the same time, the snake burst into flames, and grew in size until it now towered over the party - it was the Fire Serpent! The heroes knew its weakness, but here on the stony steps of the pyramid there was no sand... except for a handful that Goncol had kept in his pouch! The thief cast the sand at the fiery form of the serpent... and missed. As Valerian and Glowulf battled the serpent, Morgana hurriedly gathered the scattered grains of the sand, and when she had done so, she cast the sand upon the serpent, and extinguished it.

The party continued on their way, and at sunset they came upon the shores of Lake Iklala. They made camp, hidden among the reeds by the shore, and when morning came they blew on a silver whistle that Fenestra had given them. The whistle gave no sound, but soon a figure emerged from the reeds nearby - it was the boatman Fenestra had told them plied the lake. The party paid the boatman his fee, and he dragged a long single-sailed reed boat out from among the reeds, and made the heroes sit astride it, and began to row the boat out into the lake.

When they had reached the middle of the lake, the boatman suddenly stopped rowing. Glowulf turned and saw his staring into the distance, and when he tapped the boatman, his form collapsed as though it was a rag doll, and out of the heap rose a sinuous whirlwind the form of a serpent - it was the Air Serpent. Balanced precariously on the reed boat, Glowulf and Goncol tried to fend of the serpent, while Morgana used a gale horn to summon up a wind to carry them to the far shore, and Valerian peddled as hard as he could. Using the serpent staff from the Sham, Glowulf managed to wound the serpent, which vanished back into the form of the boatman. As Glowulf rooted through the pile, a small snake emerged and slipped into the water. Glowulf leapt into the water after it, as did Goncol - unfortunately, the thief had forgotten that he did not know how to swim, and had to be rescued by Morgana. Meanwhile, Glowulf, raised as he were by a fisherman, quickly caught the snake, and snapped it into half.

The party returned to the boat, and Glowulf took the oars as steered it to the far shore once more. But just as they were nearing the shore, the water ahead of them began to churn. A form broke the surface, and a serpent, its form transparent as though it was made of water, emerged. But the party was prepared for it - they took out the flasks of oil that Fenestra had given them, and proceeded to splash the contents at the serpent. As the oil struck the form of the serpent, its body began to break up into globules, which for a while were suspended in the air... and then fell into the lake, and merged with the water.

Glowulf once more set the boat in its course, and it was sunset when they beached at the swampy northern shore of Lake Iklala. The party hid the boat, and entered the Vischlami Swamps. As they trekked north, the ground beneath them became drier, until at last they found a piece of higher ground where they could set up camp.

That night their rest was briefly disturbed by a party of Swamp Goblins which were heading for the lake - were they also heeding Mampang's call?

The next morning the party continued northwards, and by afternoon they could see the peaks of the Xamen mountains in the distance. Yet as they marched on, Valerian began to notice that the trees around them appeared to look... familiar. Suspecting that they may be walking in circles, the party left marks on the ground... but found themselves coming upon the same place, but without the marks!

The party also became aware that the sun appeared not to have moved in the sky - and just when they realised that they were caught in a time loop, the air before them began to shimmer as if it was heated, and then a large serpent, its body scintillating with the colours of the rainbow, materialised, and started to attack them. The party fought back, but each time their blow landed, they found themselves jerked back in time, and the wound of the serpent's body would close. But they fought on regardless, and soon even the Time Serpent's sorcery could not withstand them. The Time Serpent turned to flee, and when the heroes tried to pursue they found themselves slowed down, as the serpent flew north, towards Mampang.

When the serpent was out of sight they flow of time returned to normal, and our heroes found themselves at the edge of the swamp, at the foothills of the Xamen mountains. They have defeated five of the serpents, but failed to stop the Time Serpent. Soon, the Archmage will know of their quest.

Prepping and Running the Game

This was a combat-heavy session, as the party had to run the gauntlet of the serpents. The difficulty of each combat was dependent on whether the players knew each serpent's weakness, and whether they had the material needed to defeat it.

I tried to make each combat different by varying the environment. For the Fire Serpent, I lured the party onto stony ground where they could not easily get sand; this meant that if the first attack missed (which it did), it would take them several rounds to gather up the sand to make another attack.

For the combats on the lake, I had the PCs sitting astride a reed boat, which meant that they could not easily switch positions, and I could pick which character I wished to attack.

The Time Serpent was a powerful adversary. I ruled that once a turn it could force a reroll of a combat round, and that this power could only be negated by the ZED spell, a spell which costs 7 stamina points. Unfortunately for the players, Morgana's player did not realise this despite my hint; but fortunately for them, they rolled so well that despite the rerolls, the Time Serpent was taking a beating. I decided then to make it flee, and gave it the power to slow time down; once more the party failed to use the ZED spell, and I allowed it to escape and bring the news of their arrival to the Archmage.

During the session I continued to drop hints that the whole of Baklands was once home to great civilisations that had since fallen, and I continued to show them that the tribes were gathering, to give them a sense of the gravity of the situation, as well as the urgency. This seemed to have worked, as would become clear in the following session (which we played yesterday, and which I shall report on soon).